The Price of Desire (8 page)

“Hoity-toity for paupers, aren’t you?” She thrust the gray gown at her. “Fathers die all the time and life goes on just the same for everyone else. All the workhouse folks wear these. I won’t be making any exceptions for a brood of ill-mannered brats who haven’t the grace to be thankful for the charity that keeps their body and soul together.”

“But we are in mourning. We should not wear gray gowns. It is not respectful.”

“Go naked then and see if I care.” The matron cackled nastily. “I’m sure there are more than me who would like to look on your fresh, smooth skin.”

Shivering with cold and silently apologizing to her father in her mind, Caroline took the gown and pulled it over her head. Every way she turned, she seemed to antagonize the matron. But to be refused the opportunity to pay her respects to her father’s memory hurt worst of all—worse by far than the pain in her belly or the ache in her feet. She had spent her last pennies on outfitting them all appropriately in black, and now their sacrifice was to be in vain. They had been refused permission to wear the clothes that had cost them so dearly, and so her father would not be properly mourned. They had no relatives, no one who would wear black for him.

From another pile the matron drew out a pinny for Caroline to tie on top of her gown, a pair of coarse woolen stockings, and a couple of thick-soled work boots. “Mind you don’t go getting your things dirty,” she warned. “There’s no clean clothes to be had until wash day.”

Her heart sank still further. “When is wash day?”

“Every second Friday. Your clothes have to do until then.”

So, they would not even have clean linen. Another indignity to strip away another tattered shred of pride.

“Now come along, the rest of you. I don’t have all day.”

Caroline turned and faced Teddy and her sisters. “That wasn’t so bad,” she lied, willing her teeth to stop chattering. The coarse linsey-woolsey of the gown scratched her skin, and the boots were a size too small and hurt her feet dreadfully, but for the sake of her sisters she had to put a brave face on it. Complaints would get them nowhere. They were paupers now—there was no use pretending otherwise.

One by one they all followed her example. There were tears in Louisa’s eyes as she discarded her black gown, and Beatrice’s scowl would have curdled all the milk in the dairy, but still they did as they were bid. Caroline heaved a sigh of relief that they had the sense to behave. Until she came up with a plan to earn enough money get them all out of the workhouse, like it or not, they were stuck there and had to abide by the same rules as everyone else.

The matron washed the others with brisk efficiency. When she came to Teddy her face softened momentarily. “Had a bonny boy myself, once,” she remarked to no one in particular. “He’s all grown up and gone for a soldier now. Writes to me once a month, regular as clockwork.”

When they were all dressed, the girls in identical linsey-woolsey gowns and pinafores, and Teddy in a thick smock and coarse pants, the matron had them line up in front of her.

“Names and ages,” she demanded, her thick black pencil hovering over a small book she had extracted from her pocket.

Caroline stepped forward to answer for all of them. “Caroline Clemens, nineteen. Emily, seventeen. Louisa, sixteen. Beatrice, fourteen. Dorothea, eleven. And Edward, ten.”

“Sixteen and over gets put in the adult ward,” the matron said absentmindedly as she scribbled in her notebook. “You’ll be expected to pick oakum with the rest of the inmates, unless you’re too weak or sick to work.” She lifted her head from her notebook for a moment to glare at them. “A word of warning in case you are tempted to malinger—if you don’t work, your food rations get cut. This is a workhouse, not a house of leisure. You must earn your keep here, same as you do on the outside.

“You two younger girls,” she continued, pointing at Beatrice and Dorothea, “will go into the ward for young females, where you will be put to learning those skills that will help you to get along in the world. And the boy will be put with the other children.”

A gasp of dismay escaped Beatrice. Her face had turned a pale shade of gray and she was holding onto Louisa’s hand as if it were a lifeline. “Do you mean to separate us?”

The matron eyed them sternly. “You’ll be allowed to visit each other once a month, if you behave yourselves and don’t get into trouble.”

“Once a month?” Caroline echoed Beatrice’s gasp of horror. She had always thought that even if they were in the workhouse, they would at least be together. But what was the use of being incarcerated in the same place if they could only see each other once a month? Teddy would be all alone, without anyone to guide or comfort him. And how would Beatrice survive the separation from Louisa, when the two were so close they seldom spent more than an hour a day apart? Despite her seeming fragility, Louisa’s will was as strong as steel, but poor Beatrice would crumble without her older sister. Beatrice had cultivated her strength in order to protect Louisa—without her, she would have no reason to keep going.

“Once a month and no more,” the matron repeated sternly. “Assuming, of course, that the Board of Governors lets you stay at all, which is by no means a surety.”

By the end of their first week in the workhouse, Caroline was almost hoping that the Board of Governors would not let them stay. Starving in the hedgerows could not be any worse than what they were forced to endure in this charitable institution. And at least in the hedgerows they would be all together.

Along with the other women, she and Emily and Louisa had been set to work picking oakum. The work was hard enough for hands already toughened by labor, but for the soft white hands of girls accustomed only to embroidery or painting, it was excruciating. After barely ten minutes picking at the tough rope, untwining the strands, Caroline’s hands were rubbed raw. In less than an hour they were blistered and bleeding and so stiff he could barely stand to move them. The pain after a day’s work kept her awake at night, tossing and turning in her narrow cot. Neither Emily nor Louisa fared any better. And, most worryingly, Louisa had started to cough in the night, a thin hacking cough that did not bode well.

Despite the pain in her hands, Caroline did not dare to stop. The food, even for the workers, was meager enough to leave her with a permanently hollow feeling in her belly. If her rations were to be cut, she would slowly start to starve. She had seen some of the inmates who were too sick to work, emaciated and hollow-eyed, wandering around the compound as noiselessly as if they were already ghosts. She did not want to join that company of the living dead—not while she still had a spark of life left in her.

She could only hope that Teddy and Dorothea would be partially cushioned by their youth and their natural high spirits. And the young were not dealt with as harshly as the adults were. Once, she had seen from the window a group of children playing in the courtyard. Children were resilient, and Teddy and Dorothea were young enough to adjust. As long as they had enough food, and remained free of the cholera and the other diseases that haunted the workhouse, they would survive relatively unscathed until she had worked out a plan to free them all.

Beatrice, she was afraid, had already given up hope. Though they were forbidden to speak to each other except on their official monthly visit, Caroline had caught sight of her most days as the three older sisters were walked to the room where they picked oakum. Beatrice, more than any of them, had lost a lot of weight and looked positively haggard. More than her thinness, though, was the lack of spark in her eyes. No longer was she the defiant little spitfire who would take on the world to protect her beloved sister. Her spirit had broken under the harsh conditions and the separation from Louisa. Her shoulders slumped and her head was bowed, and her gaze followed Louisa with the hunger of a starving, abused puppy to whom food and shelter is only just out of reach.

Caroline made her way to the dining hall for their midday meal, her shoulders already slumping in exhaustion and her hands throbbing in agony. Beatrice, more than any of them, needed to be rescued. The workhouse was not the reprieve she had imagined it to be. It was nothing more than the beginning of a slow death. If she did not get them out, they would all rot and die there.

Just as she reached her place on the bench and sat down to eat, the matron stepped up and called out her name in a stentorian voice. She rose from her place and bent her head submissively. “Yes, Matron.” She had learned early on that any sign of spirit was taken as a personal affront.

“The Board of Governors met this morning. You and your sisters and brother have been refused admittance. You must be on your way this afternoon.”

She looked longingly down at her bowl of thin soup and the hunk of black bread and cheese on her plate. Even with this awful news ringing in her ears, her stomach clamored to be fed. “Refused?” Were they to be denied even this postponement of death? “But we have nowhere else to go.”

“That’s not what the Board of Governors said. They claimed you had turned down a perfectly unexceptional offer of support from one of your father’s friends, a Captain Bellamy. The Captain himself confirmed that he had made such a gesture, and moreover swore that he was still willing to provide you with an establishment according to the terms of his original offer.”

“Unexceptional?” Caroline’s voice rose in dismay. “Did he fail to inform the Board of Governors that his offer came with strings attached? That it was not at all the sort of offer that a respectable woman could accept?”

The matron shrugged. “I don’t care what sort of offer it was. It’s not my business, but the business of the Board of Governors. Orders is orders. Now come along.”

Caroline stood her ground. There was nothing left for her to lose. “I want to see the master.”

“He’ll just tell you the same as me.”

“Then he can tell me himself that he is refusing me and my sisters a place of refuge, and instead throwing us out onto the mercy of the world. That he is throwing us out so that the Captain can make a whore out of me.” Despite her best efforts, her voice began to crack.

The matron shrugged. “Still just as hoity-toity as you were when you arrived, I see. Come with me and I’ll tell the master as you wants to speak to him.”

Hurriedly Caroline snatched her portion of bread and cheese from out of her bowl and hid it in her apron for later. Though it was strictly against the rules for any food to be removed from the dining hall, she was ravenous, and if she was to be thrown out on to the streets, heaven only knew when she would eat again.

The matron left her in the same echoing vestibule as when she first arrived. Caroline sat on the wooden bench and munched on her pilfered bread and cheese, making it last for as long as she could. Little as it was, it eased the hollowness of her belly and made her hunger bearable for a time.

A short time later she heard the telltale footsteps of the master limp down the wooden hallway. He stopped in the doorway. “You have heard already the Board of Governors has refused you admittance. What do you hope to gain from seeing me?”

At the look of resignation on his face, she knew at once that any protests she made would be useless, but still she had to try. “Captain Bellamy offered to make me his whore,” she said bluntly. “That is the only support I can claim from him.”

“The Board of Governors made no such mention of his intentions.”

“Did you think he would tell them?” she asked bitterly. “Did you think he would make it widely known that he offered to corrupt a young woman of good morals? A woman to whom he had once been engaged, which engagement he cruelly and callously broke off in order to wed a wealthier woman?”

“The board has spoken. You have no right of appeal. And I cannot afford to have you stay and to feed you out of my own pocket. You would be taking food out of the mouths of your fellow inmates. I cannot allow that.”

Her shoulders slumped. Thanks to Captain Bellamy’s lies, even this last refuge was now denied them. “It is already afternoon and the night will be here soon. Let us stay the night at least. We will leave in the morning.”

He looked doubtful.

“You can send the bill for our food and lodging to the Captain. He has offered to support us, hasn’t he?” she asked bitterly. “He can pay for one more night.”

Still he hesitated.

“And you have my leave to charge him enough to double everyone’s rations for a week.”

At that his face creased into a smile. “You drive a fair bargain, lass. You and your family can stay for tonight. But tomorrow you must leave.”

“After breakfast.” That at least would ensure they got one last meal before they left. “We cannot walk far on an empty stomach.”

“After breakfast,” he agreed.

And she was forced to be content with that.

Dominic poured a generous measure of port into his glass and passed the decanter around the table to the fellow next to him. He took a swig and put his glass down on the table again. The temptation to get happily plastered was great, if only to make the evening pass more quickly. The dinner party had been awful, the food barely passable and not at all to his taste, and the company interminably dreary. Worst of all, it would still be a good hour before he could politely make his excuses and escape. He’d only accepted the invitation in the first place in an effort to get out more in English society, to make some new acquaintances and find a place for himself among the City bankers. And to find out where Caroline Clemens had sequestered herself.

While he’d been away in the provinces, her father’s house had been sold and Caroline had vanished off the face of the earth. Though he’d searched everywhere he could think of, he had not found a trace of her. He could only hope that someone among her old circle would know where she had gone. A young woman could not disappear into thin air. Especially not with half a dozen siblings in tow.

It hadn’t taken him long to decide that he wouldn’t bother to cultivate a closer friendship with most of the people present. Self-satisfied and smug, they feasted on course after course of turtle soup, quail, venison, and every other delicacy money could buy. As they stuffed their mouths full of rich food, they decried the evil life of the poor of London, who lacked the means to buy themselves a simple loaf of black bread for their dinner and were forced to steal to keep themselves from starving.